Fears,Prejudices, and real estate is the topic of this book written by Lisa Provost and her book "Snob Zones" looks at the battles for open housing in six New England suburb and bedroom communities. She looks at how these towns set up zoning laws to prohibit lower -income people from residing in their towns and the lengths these bigoted people go through with conspiring is contemptible. The fear of urban housing for blacks is what drives these six towns in their pathetic quest to look like an America from the twenties. In fact , many of these towns put up restrictions at that time period and is a primary reason,along with expensive housing, to why their communities remain so lily white to this day.
Lisa goes through the Connecticut towns of Roxbury and Darien along with the New Hampshire town of Ossipee and Milbridge, Maine. She also looks at how Eaton, Massachusetts and Watch Hill Rhode Island ensure blacks can never move into their communities by enforcing any new construction has to be a lot over three acres. This is the primary method these villages use to ensuring racial segregation and lack of growth in their picturesque towns.
Ms Provost shows how many communities take HUD dollars without complying to fair-housing mandates. Throughout the book the prejudices of large home owners against the opportunity of new developments for new living arrangements for migrant workers is exposed as neighbors fear that their McMansions and large homes values will somehow be threatened from people who don't hold extreme property holdings. They want their blueberries picked but would rather the pickers live in tents or temporary trailer homes without running water.
Government lawsuits have challenged and destroyed much of this resistance but the time and money spent prevented thus far a great deal of necessary development of new housing in these regions. these developments will eventually come but it may take these gray haired greedy bastards to finally die off to make this region more open to other people of diverse incomes to be able to afford and have opportunities to reside in these nice looking towns. Given their current demographics places like New Hampshire have no other course of action as the wealthy baby boomers will not live forever and that awful state has no opportunities for young people to acquire affordable houses and start their own life prosperity. A someone who homelessness as caused me to get banned from a high number of communities I am well aware of these snob zones.
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